The Overlooked Benefits of Stress
You need stress. Not what you expected to hear, right? But it’s true. Stress is part of a necessary cycle of health.
We have all heard stress used as a buzzword for the root of all ailments, but in fact, stress plays a positive and vital part of life. While most of us have used stress as an excuse to delay important changes in our lives; ‘I’ll start cooking for myself when I’m less stressed,’ ‘I’ll quit watching so much TV/using so much social media, etc. after X stressful event is over’, this strategy rarely works because stress is essential to being alive and staying vibrant.
The autonomic nervous system is the name we have given to the electrical and chemical actions that occur in our body without us having to consciously control them. The stress response is regulated in our bodies by a part of the autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system. The opposing side of the autonomic nervous system, called the parasympathetic nervous system, drives our “rest and digest” mechanisms.
From an evolutionary standpoint, the stress response has kept our ancestors safe for millions of years. Increased heart rate, faster breathing, the increase in cortisol that mobilizes the calcium away from bones and into skeletal muscle to increase strength and speed all help keep humans safe when they have encountered danger.
Stress is important to staunch blood flow and shift the processes of digestion and healing to a backburner in favor of the fight, flight or freeze processes. This happens on a physiologic level, and it happens to all of us. Stress also releases oxytocin, a hormone that helps us interrelate as the social beings that we are.
The reality is that learning about the stress response and how to develop a healthy relationship to that stress response is key to long term health. Developing that relationship, through coping skills and positive feedback loops, can be useful to our short term comfort as well.
For an in depth discussion on the benefits of stress and how to use stress to live a healthier life, watch this TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal.
Stress is best handled in a circadian fashion. Our bodies change their electrical and chemical activities throughout the day; we are a dynamic, homeostatic system with an internal clock. For optimum function, it is ideal for our bodies to move from sympathetic dominance (fight/flight/freeze) to parasympathetic dominance (rest & digest) multiple times a day. [Refer back to the third paragraph for an explanation of sympathetic and parasympathetic dominance.]
In many industrialized cultures, the expectation for a lot of people who work or have kids, or both, is to be in sympathetic dominance constantly. As in, ALL. THE. TIME. And it is true that we are productive in sympathetic dominance… in the short term. In reality though, in order to maintain long term productivity, we need to shift back and forth between sympathetic and parasympathetic states. Doing so also allows for a greater enjoyment of life.
After learning this information on the positive benefits of stress, are you ready to befriend stress? If yes, start by finding a regular, daily method or methods, to unwind from stress.
Meditation, prayer, exercise, sex, dancing, laughing, hugging and talking through your day with a friend or therapist are just some of the many ways that you can access your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).
One method that takes little time, no money or outside influence is breathing. I know, you are breathing all the time. That’s excellent; keep doing that. To use a form of breathing to access your parasympathetic nervous system, start by focusing on your breath. Slow down the exhale. The slower exhale communicates to your brain that you are safe. This allows your central nervous system to switch the chemical messages from fight/flight/freeze to rest and digest mode.
Create a strategy several times a day that allows you time and space to add in this simple change. You can try trigger scenarios like: when you wash your hands, when you open a door, when you are stopped at a red light - focus on your breath and create one longer exhale. It takes time to build this habit, but trying consistently is key.